Brazil was incredible, although a lot of people probably wouldn’t have said the same thing, because a lot of people got mugged, were involved with credit card fraud at ATMs and there were even some extreme cases of people getting beaten up! Brazil is a pretty dangerous place overall and I’m glad that I wasn’t caught up in any of the drama. It really could have happened to anyone… which is scary, but it’s life.
It was beautiful nonetheless though and I fell in love with it a little bit. Especially Salvador, which was probably the cutest city I’ve ever been. There were lots of colorful and really old historic buildings and cobblestone streets… it was adorable! Our ship was ported in the lower part of the city and in order to get to “Old Town” which they call it, you had to take this elevator that would literally just bring you right to it… it was pretty cool! Walking into the square at the top made me think of Europe or something, although I’ve never been, I just feel like it would look something like that! Then again Salvador, or Brazil in general has a lot of European influence. The morning and early afternoon of the first day a group of us went to the square where there were cute little shops, restaurants and an outside market, where we just relaxed and just took everything in. My flight for Rio left that evening, which we ALMOST missed, because we got held up in traffic from this concert that was going on. Our flight was supposed to leave at 6pm and we didn’t get to the airport until 5:30pm! Thank God the flight got delayed an hour, because we would have missed it without a question. It was a 2 hour flight to Rio and we were all pretty tired when we got there so we just decided to stay in. It was a National Holiday anyways, so even if we had wanted to go out, nothing was really open. We also had some trouble at the hotel which had a very strict guest policy… because our plan was to have a few of us crash without them really noticing, which we got away with the first night, but the other nights not so much haha but that’s a whole other story of its own.
I was so excited to wake up in the morning, to see Rio in the day time, the next day… the hotel where we were at was right down the street from Copacabana Beach! That day was one of the best days I’ve had on this entire trip I would have to say… we just had so much fun and got to do so much!! First thing we did was go to Christ the Redeemer himself, who looks over the entire city of Rio on Corcovado. Unfortunately, like we had been told previously, he was under construction and had scaffolding all around him… but it was still so neat to see and be right there, standing beneath him. It was pretty humorous that he had this tarp over his face with a face on it… we all got a kick out of that! My friend Ryan and I decided to hike up to it instead of taking the bus, which was definitely worthwhile. The views were absolutely breathtaking!!! Especially once we got to the top… we got a panoramic view of all of Rio. Depending on what angle you looked from you could see Maracana, which used to be the largest soccer stadium in the entire world, or Sugarloaf Mountain. I felt like I was on top of the world up there. On our journey down, near where our taxi was waiting for us, I had my first encounter with monkeys in the wild haha! There were these 2 monkeys just hooting and hollering down at us from these trees and I remembered that we had put a couple bananas in our bag from breakfast and I took one out… the monkey noticed right away what I had and scurried down the tree, crying for it. I wish I had videoed this, but I tossed the banana to the money who just hung off the branch and grabbed it from mid-air! It was hysterical! It then scurried back up the tree, peeled it and ate it. We then headed straight for the beach which we chilled on for at least a few hours… soaking up the sun, swimming and playing soccer and volleyball with some Brazilian kids. People would come up to you on the beach selling anything you could imagine… from food, beer, swim suits, clothes and jewelry. That night we got to go to a soccer game at Maracana!! It was such a crazy experience… it was a match between 2 local Brazilian teams and the fans were absolutely INSANE!!! I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire life… and I’ve never jumped, yelled and chanted so loud in my entire life either LOL. It was such a great time… but exhausting!
Our last day in Rio was spent pretty much lying out on Copacabana, although it was kinda windy, it was still nice. It was a pretty low key day and later that night we went to the district of Lapa, where the nightlife scene is and we ate dinner at this very nice Brazilian restaurant then went bar hopping. Laura and I had to wake up early to get to the airport to catch our flight back to Salvador. There was only like 20 people on the plane too, which was kinda cool, I got to sprawl out in my own row of seats! I wish I had more time in Rio though… because I feel like we only got to see just a little part of the city, but I guess that means I’ll just have to go back, which I’m sure I will sometime in the future. When I got back to the ship, I was so exhausted that I hung out on the ship for most of the day then met up with some girlfriends to celebrate our last night… not only in Brazil, but the entire trip in general. Bittersweet of a feeling it was, but I’m glad I got to spend it with the girls that I did, Jenna, Abbey, and Abigail, who have become my best friends on this ship :) I’m gonna miss them so much!!! We partied all night and stayed at this cute hostel near the square in Salvador. The last day we ate at this amazing crepe restaurant and just walked around, picking up last minute souvenirs and I got some braids in my hair! Also broke my camera… or I didn’t necessarily break it, but it just stopped working lol. Ironic… but thankfully it happened on the last day at least! It was an interesting feeling getting back on the ship, because it was the last time we would ever be getting back on it.
We are going to be in Florida next week… 8 days. I can’t believe how fast the semester went by, although I thought it was going by slow at times. These 8 days are going to fly by, because this week I’m just swamped with school work, last days of classes, finals and packing…
Looking forward to Florida though, because I’m going to Disney World for my first time EVER!!! Haha, I’m pretty pumped about it, not gonna lie. Will be back in NH in 10 days… going to NYC in 19 days… my 21st birthday is in 21 days… and then Norway in 30 days! So, I’m pretty busy when I return home, and still gotta finalize my summer job as well, find an apartment for next fall and start training for field hockey. I’m just glad I’m gonna be kept busy, because I feel like after this trip it’s gonna be hard for me to ever sit still!
This whole experience has really changed my life and I have learned so much about not only the world, but myself and others. I’ve grown tremendously as a person and will keep the memories that I’ve made very close to my heart… I’m really excited to be home, but it’s also going to be hard to leave. The ship really became my home these last 3.5 months and the people that I’ve grown close to have turned into family… I traveled the world with them! But I don’t think the journey will ever end. I have so much to look forward to and I have so much to be thankful for!!! I’ve realized that you need to always have an open heart and to embrace change every chance you can… because it can change your life in extraordinary ways.
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